Politics

Indies show their true colours

The Canberra Times reports that the desperately close race for the Molonglo seventh seat now has Elena Kirschbaum, Caroline le Couteur, and Giulia Jones locked ridiculously tight.

But with counting running to next week it’s all still speculative.

Of possibly more interest, and sure to be the subject of some degree of “I told you so” from Labor, is the new publicity alliance of The Australian Motorist Party, Mark Parton and the Community Alliance Party who are claiming that their combined 15% of the electorate (not that they managed to distribute preferences between themselves) are utterly opposed to Labor:

They are asking the Greens to take this factor into account when deciding whether to throw their support behind a Liberal or Labor government.

If the Motorists Party had not run the full ticket of candidates in Brindabella or Monlonglo the results would most likely have been different. Those who passionately voted just within the ticket for the motorists party, who you would expect to be right leaning, effectively delivered a Green member to Brindabella. If they had just run two candidates their preferences would have flowed back to candidates like Val Jeffrey.

“more than half of the electorate seemingly went to the ballot box seeking a change of government”

With respect, that’s a bit of a stretch. Just because someone didn’t vote for the Labor Party doesn’t necessarily mean that they went seeking a change of government. If someone really wanted a change of government above all else, they would have voted Liberal in the first place.

Regardless, it’s patently ridiculous to assert that not voting for the incumbent party is inherently a vote for the largest opposition party (even if it wasn’t ACTUALLY a vote for the largest opposition party).

jakez; if this group had been elected then they would be entitled to play a role in choosing who forms govt. They weren’t elected, so they dont have a role to play.

on election day the vast majority of canberrans took a look at them and decided that they didn’t want them making decisions like this. for this group to now suggest that they are above the result and have a role to play in government is absolute arrogance, there’s no other word for it.

the people have spoken; they didn’t want this group involoved, and they should respect that result.

jakez; if this group had been elected then they would be entitled to play a role in choosing who forms govt. They weren’t elected, so they dont have a role to play.

on election day the vast majority of canberrans took a look at them and decided that they didn’t want them making decisions like this. for this group to now suggest that they are above the result and have a role to play in government is absolute arrogance, there’s no other word for it.

the people have spoken; they didn’t want this group involoved, and they should respect that result.

If that is the case, then democracy is a lie, and your vote does not count unless you win. Jeez it’s not often that someone outdoes me on cynicism over democracy.

Mate, 15% of the population said yes and so they have 15% of the voice.

The 15% is a considerable overstatement. Territory-wide, CAP, AMP and Mark Parton garned 10.5% of the formal votes. Additionally, as I’ve already put above, many of these votes got passed on as preferences, so those voters views are already being represented by the people that actually got elected by them – CAP, AMP and Mark claiming to speak for them as well is “double-dipping”. I would even contend that those CAP, AMP and Parton votes that exhausted were also making a deliberate choice, of “any of the others, I don’t care”. If they wanted to preference Liberal, they could have.

What are you talking about jakez? Of course your vote counts, but it mean shit when the majority of people vote for someone else.

I hate to point this out to you but “15% of the voice” basically means nothing. 85% of the population didn’t want these particular guys having a voice, in a democracy the wishes of 85% of the population need to outweigh 15% every time.